Alas, yet again, these static-filled airwaves are redolent with noxious fumes and clouded by a dust-storm to rival those that plagued the Great Plains in the Thirties. It’s tempting to say this tempest in a teapot is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But there is a serious question before the court of prickly pedantic opinion:

Is it nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous persecution by those who object to borrowing words without attribution – or to take up arms – or at least words – against a sea of sirens, and by thus opposing, wound them?

Coward who does it with a kiss rather than a sword, I intend to remain above the fray and attempt to inject a little humor into this ill-wind of ill-will.

What follows was plagiarized with impunity and malice aforethought. But I, Dear Reader, am not to be blamed for this affrontery and malfeasance; nay, I was forced to do so in response to an irresistible impulse engendered by Cindy Ross, who took our dearly beloved leader Judy Berman to task in her post, and by Roger Fallihee, who accused my excellent friend Bill Shakespeare of plagiarism in his post.

Herewith, then, my play, a play upon words so profound they are beyond parody – yet fool that I am, I rush in, for as Shakespeare observed, the whole world loves a fool. Or perhaps in my case, I should defer to Sally Field – “you like me; you really like me.” Boniva.

Judy or not Judy -- that is the question
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous ignoring
Or to take up words against a sea of slackers
And by thus rear-ending expose them.

To write … to schlep … to vow to schlep no more
To end the heartache of a thousand rejections
That pen and flesh and hair fall victim to;
To consternation – not to mention constipation –
Devoutly to be unwished

To write … to schlep … perchance to dream
Aye, there's the rub; for in that schlep
What shattered dreams may yet come true
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil?

Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life
For we who bear the whips and scorns of time:

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?

Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus fatigue doth make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Soft you now! Unfair Open Salon!
Nymphomaniac in thy orisons
Be all thy sins remember'd.

©2010 Tom Cordle and Bill Shakespeare